This morning, as I do on most mornings, I was standing in my local coffee shop waiting for my order to be prepared and chatting with the staff. The owner came in staring at their mobile phone with a bit of a perplexed look on their face. When they noticed us looking at them, they told us that someone had left a review of the cafe online yesterday which included the line “…the AC was just way too cold for me! almost got frostbite”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let me note that, like many parts of the world, here in BC we’ve been having a late Summer heatwave and yesterday, in particular, had been one of the hottest days. People were purposefully seeking out places with AC to bask in the chill!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All day though this review was at the back of my mind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The thing that nagged at me about the review was, despite thinking the cafe was great 4 out of 5 stars (I guess only body temperature cafes get full marks), it seemed like the most ridiculous thing to take time out of your day to post online! A person took time out of their, I am guessing not-so-busy, day to ensure this remark was forever linked to the cafe via the interwebs. Why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I even made the comment to the owner that this was why some people don’t deserve the internet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I realize that is a slightly odd thing for me to say, as I am posting on the internet myself, but there is a big difference between me typing words into the void that barely anyone will read and going to a company’s website to make a backhanded remark that the company has no ability to remove or really comment on (because what is there to say to that?). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Admittedly, I am a venter by nature, when something bothers me I will heatedly and loudly exclaim my displeasure to my friends\/co-workers…in the privacy of…the real world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I actively think about what I am putting out into forever – because the internet is forever. I mentally determine and measure potential outcomes before I decide to post anything be it photos or writing, asking myself questions like would I be embarrassed, now or in the future, by someone finding this? Will it be injurious to someone if I post this? It isn’t that I want to put bland content into the world, but I don’t want to drag down the IQ of the entire universe with useless nonsense (some nonsense is entertaining and I’m not talking about that).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No, this innocuous little comment by a random coffee drinker (if I am being extra judgemental, they probably don’t even drink coffee. 😒) doesn’t really hurt anyone. It is just one example of how often people don’t think through their actions when they have easy access to a worldwide audience (or a few hundred in this case). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes, I am an overthinker of the highest order, but more and more frequently I will see or read or hear something and my immediate response is, why? Did that need to be shared with the world? Couldn’t you have just thought it through and come to the conclusion that the only reason you are doing it is so more people can “see” you? A little more thinking and less instantaneous (and permanent) reaction will do the entire world good. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Did I need to write this? Nope. Am I doing it anyway? Yup, because this is my little piece of the Forever Digital and I can. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But hey, if I knew the person that wrote that review I would have told them it was pointless too – consistency IRL and online!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
*The temperature in my home is perfect, but I have no coffee so…<\/sub><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This morning, as I do on most mornings, I was standing in my local coffee shop waiting for my order to be prepared and chatting with the staff. The owner came in staring at their mobile phone with a bit of a perplexed look on their face. When they noticed us looking at them, they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[9,7,11],"class_list":["post-328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-year-43","tag-contemplation","tag-life-2","tag-thoughts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/likalia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/likalia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/likalia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/likalia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/likalia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=328"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/likalia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":329,"href":"https:\/\/likalia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions\/329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/likalia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/likalia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/likalia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}